Christopher Schroeder

Category: community and culture

  • More Public Media Concerns

    More Public Media Concerns

    I was relieved that WBEZ ended its fall pledge drive yesterday and resumed its regular programming. However, I was reminded even before the broadcast began of my Chicago Public Media concerns.

    I had to listen to two sponsor spots on my smart speakers on my smart speakers. Then I lost count of the number of these and other disruptions such as show promos and apparent advertising — one lauded an antacid? — before I couldn’t listen anymore.

    I didn’t clock the minutes but couldn’t endure any more disruptions. I had spent too much time listening to something other than news, which is the primary reason I listen, and support, public media in the mornings and afternoons.

    I also predicted based upon experience that some of these segments from both NPR and WBEZ would be recycled for afternoon and weekend broadcasts. And I’ve begun to notice more excerpted podcasts on these news shows than original reporting.

    I realize that WBEZ and NPR are confronting challenging financial circumstances even without the incessant pledge drive reminders. I also still am, and have long been, a public media supporter, and long for a government-funded approach as is used in other countries.

    I’m still surprised that NPR and WBEZ hadn’t prepared for these federal funding cuts given how often conservatives have threatened to do so, which seems almost irresponsible. I’m moreover bewildered by the seeming inconsistency between the impression presented in the recent Chicago Sun-Times wraparound for example and these and other experiences, including ones with support staff and upper management, since these funding reductions and even earlier.

    I’ve volunteered for an upcoming usability test for < chicago.com >, which is its latest initiative. I’m skeptical that Chicagoans are seeking a synthesis of social media and reliable reporting but might misunderstand the scope and goals of this initiative.

    I just hope that Chicago Public Media can restore my confidence in it, and convince me to reverse my own financial support reductions, soon.

  • Not Quite Ready If You Ask Me

    Not Quite Ready If You Ask Me

    I am surprised by how much credible critics like Primetime, the new movie directed by Lance Oppenheim that I saw this week.

    This movie, which is a 2007 Esquire article adaptation by Ajon Singh, is the story of a reality TV series about potential child sex predator stings. At its center are its host Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and its producer Andie Bender (Merritt Weaver) and their collaboration with a vigilante justice group and the most recent decoy actor (Skylar Gisando).

    Hansen and Bender want to compete with other primetime programs — Hansen is also hiding an affair from his estranged wife and confused kids — and the decoy wants a credit for his acting card. In their pursuit of these ends, they destroy the people around them and themselves.

    Their choices and experiences are explored by Oppenheim, who brings his trademark blend of nonfiction, storytelling, and cinematic conventions to his first narrative feature film. This movie recreates a reality television experience, and also focuses on the wall between the screen and the audience, as it blurs lines between experience and narrative.

    Critics cite his direction as well as powerful performances and even the cinematic experience as noteworthy elements of this movie, which I can understand. I however couldn’t get past the tensions between form and content, which masks underdeveloped characters and plot.

    As a result, I couldn’t care about this story or these people no matter how interested in the larger questions I am.

    I am intrigued by the way that narrative, and drama, shape experience and generate significance and meaning, and often asked first-year college students and English majors to consider these. I can easily imagine ways that these issues could be considered in this movie, and also ways it could ask more conventional content questions , such as one about ambition and ethics or culture and commodification.

    It instead seems content with friction or flashes from crossing conventional craft and content boundaries that illuminate little if anything about this situation, its setting, these characters, or the world where we all live.

  • Matchmaker, Matchmaker

    Matchmaker, Matchmaker

    A recent Atlantic article offers a different perspective on dating app problems, but these conditions suggest something more significant.

    This article by Olga Khazan shifts the dating app discussion from its products to its approach. Central to such challenges Khazan suggests is the reduction in socializing, especially in “mixed-gender, non-dating” situations.

    Dating apps as Khazan describes allow users to filter for hight for example in ways that might make the process more efficient. Such preferences however can be supplanted by other, and more appealing attributes, such as poise under pressure or kindness to strangers, that often and sometimes only appear in repeated interactions over time.

    These apps might make looking for love more efficient, but that encourages users to expect perfection as Khazan explains and reduces these experiences to chemistry with strangers rather than affection that arises with context. The more important issue I believe is that these digital matchmakers are no match for human experience.

    Human analogues obviously aren’t perfect. Some arrangements whether marriages or something less legal don’t succeed for any substantial time.

    This imperfection however is essential. Human relationships more generally not only consist of but also depend upon imperfect experiences, which can be gateways to bigger benefits and more satisfaction.

    I’m not suggesting that dating challenges, which others have documented and discussed, can be completely explained by digital difficulties. I do think these conditions though cannot be disentangled from the digital devices and platform technologies that have catalyzed, or at least contributed to, these.

    Efficiency more importantly isn’t always an unalloyed good. Not everything is or should or even can be an engineering problem.

    Apps and algorithms in other words cannot completely replace human experience and expertise. Some areas of human existence in still other words must be protected from the intrusion of digital technologies, including AI.

    And that is something worth remembering for all of us whether we dating or not as we consider first principles for incorporating these technologies, including AI, into our lives.